Summer reading

I tend only to read the back of the products in my toilet room. That's not one of my characteristics which frequently finds itself on my CV.
 
The Stand.....much better than the movie I might add. Which is usually the case, but I said it nevertheless. Big Whoop, ya wanna fight about it??
 
How could you write out of a nutsack, and better yet, how could you get in a nutsack? Are you a friggin smurf?!
 
You're welcome to smurfing try, smurf...

He has been captured in a giant nutsack by aliens and he has to write a decent chapter of a book to get out of it... But he can't...





what....
 
Oh that's not fair. Stephen King has written some fine books and some better short stories. Ok, so he's all about genre really (with a few minor exceptions- an essay about baseball and Different Seasons).

That said I agree that the guy has a bad habit of milling out books without thinking much about quality. That and the fact that he tends to run off too long. Needful Things just went on and on and on- better movie than the book.

His older stuff was better.

Worse that King, Koontz. That guy has written a few decent books but in another of those that churn out horror like a factory. Worse yet, Ann Rice though I am thinking Laura Hamiliton is probably worse that Rice. Poppy Z Brite- also pretty awful- at least what I've read of her.

The quality of horror writing has been in free-fall for a long damn time. That's one of the reasons I am looking through horror short stories for the worthwhile talent.

My advice- Stick with Harlan Ellison. But check out the Brian Hopkins novella El Dia de los Muertos- one of the best reads in a long time. Also need to read House of Leaves.

Also got the first reads of Ian Rankin and Michael Connolley for the summer.
 
Okay, I admit it got away from me a bit there, I actually do like (even respect - Different Seasons is excellent) Stephen Kings non-horror works but his horrors are godawful... Desperation and The Regulators are easily the worst two books I have ever read and his "classics" (Carrie, Pet Cemetary,Shining, The Stand) are bland at best.
 
Don't go anywhere near the new Dune: Battle of Corrin, I just finished reading it, so bad it's funny. Well, except that seeing the Dune legacy destroyed like that isn't funny at all.

I'm now reading Don Q. to atone.
 
DirtyDreamDesigner said:
Okay, I admit it got away from me a bit there, I actually do like (even respect - Different Seasons is excellent) Stephen Kings non-horror works but his horrors are godawful... Desperation and The Regulators are easily the worst two books I have ever read and his "classics" (Carrie, Pet Cemetary,Shining, The Stand) are bland at best.
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I actually was sympathetic to Desperation, but thought Bag of Bones was overdone. Never read Carrie and wasn't that impressed by the Shining (Kubrick's movie was better). But I liked Salem's Lot a lot and the Stand. Also enjoyed his early collections of short-stories. But I agree, Different Seasons was quite good. No surprise that two of the stories were turned into pretty good movies, though Apt Pupil- the third- didn't live up to the potential.
 
I used to get pissed of every time someone mentioned The Stand... Such a great idea wasted on such a meh book...

About Apt Pupil... they should wait 'til Kenneth Branagh gets older and make a remake with him, I swear the man is the most convincing evil nazi ever. (except Wooz.)

Also, there is a "The Body" movie too. It's called "Stand By Me" and it's great.

EDIT: Aaand now I see you know that, my bad...
 
Desperation was awesome. Insult Desperation again and I will posses your body until it decays and dies.
 
I am currently re-reading "The Master and Margarita" by Mikhail Bulgakov. A wonderful book.

Also if you like "strange" books I really recommend "Winter's tale" by Mark Helprin. It is kind of beautiful.
 
I'm going to finish reading all of the Discworld books. Start on the Foundation series (never read) and read the Bean quartet after I re-read Ender's Game.

Right now though, I'm going through the first book of There Will Be War which is turning out to be ok and not. I'm about halfway through it and there needs to be more actual SF war stories and less reports on things.

Desperation was one of the first Stephen King books I read and thought it was really good... Later I read The Regulators and thought it was pretty mediocre. The Stand is good though the overtly "God saves!" message was annoying. I read the first three books of the Dark Tower series a few years ago and thought they were awesome but I got halfway through the fourth before I got sick of him just plodding along and being long-winded. - Colt
 
Colt, have you read Shadow of the Giant? How is it? I've read the first three and while I loved Ender's Shadow and Shadow of the Hegemon, I was pretty disappointed with Shadow Puppets. Way too much focus on the love story. But aye, good choice in series.
 
I haven't read any of the Bean quartet (as it's referred to) yet. I've read most of the Xenosaga or whatever it's called, the books that follow Ender as an adult.

First series:

* Ender's Game
* Speaker for the Dead
* Xenocide
* Children of the Mind


This is what I've never read and I want to soon:

Second series:

* Ender's Shadow
* Shadow of the Hegemon
* Shadow Puppets
* Shadow of the Giant

The first series wasn't very good as I've mentioned before elsewhere here. Not sure how to describe why but just that it wasn't much like the Ender's Game at all. - Colt
 
Colt said:
Start on the Foundation series (never read)
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The Foundation Series is mind-blowing, but you should probably read the Robot series first, because if you bother to read all the way to Foundation's Edge (the last Foundation written by Asimov) you'll be glad you did.

You might continue with the three after it, which are Foundation's Fear, Foundation's Chaos, and Foundation's Triumph. Written by other authors after Asimov's death, they do a very nice job of tying Asimov's whole sci-fi universe together. Quite an accomplishment.
 
Ratty said:
Desperation was awesome. Insult Desperation again and I will posses your body until it decays and dies.
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Agreed. Desperation and The Regulators are both awesome. I tend to like King's short stories better than his novels, though.

I'm reading Chuck Palahniuk's new book, Haunted, right now. It's kind of a grizzly and disturbing version of Chaucer's Canturbury Tales. Really good, though the first short story is amazingly disgusting. I couldn't even think about food for an hour or two after I read it.
 
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